UK to spend £5.8bn on tackling climate change in poor countries

on 08 October 2015.

Almost £6bn of the UK’s foreign aid budget will be spent on tackling climate change in poor countries over the next five years, David Cameron has said, as Britain steps up its contributions by 50% to help meet international targets.

The prime minister will unveil the UK’s offer at the United Nations general assembly, before crucial international climate change talks in Paris in December where nations are expected to collectively pledge $100bn (£66bn) a year by 2020.

Activists promise largest climate civil disobedience ever

housands of climate change campaigners have promised to blockade a major UN climate summit in Paris with what they say will be non-violent direct action on a scale Europe has not seen before.

Grassroots groups from 350.org to Attac France are throwing their weight behindthe “Climate Games” event for the landmark climate conference in December. The protests will involve 10 blockades, themed around “red lines” which they fear negotiators for the nearly 200 countries inside the summit may cross.

Indonesian forest fires on track to emit more CO2 than UK

on 07 October 2015.

Fires raging across the forests and peatlands of Indonesia are on track to pump out more carbon emissions than the UK’s entire annual output, Greenpeace has warned.

As well as fuelling global warming, the thick smoke choking cities in the region is likely to cause the premature deaths of more than 100,000 people in the region and is also destroying vital habitats for endangered orangutans and clouded leopards.

Earth’s rising population spells trouble ahead

on 06 October 2015.

Mark Carney warns that climate change will lead to financial crises and falling living standards unless companies (have to) come clean about their current and future carbon emissions (Report, 30 September). In the same issue George Monbiot notes that there is water flowing on Mars and asks if there is intelligent life on Earth. Monbiot also reminds us the world has lost half of its vertebrate wildlife in the last 40 years. It’s surely no coincidence that the human population has doubled in our lifetime (we were born in the 1940s). Sadly, population control seems to have become an issue that we are reluctant to discuss.